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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

DH suffered a massive blow this week...

136 replies

ConcealDontFeel · 20/07/2018 23:22

...and I’m completely at a loss.

I don’t want to go into the details too much but basically it is work-related. To cut a long story short he put himself forward for something and despite all indications to the contrary (management as good as told The team that the position was his), he didn’t get it. They decided at the last minute to go “in a different direction”.

He worked so, so hard and he is really disappointed about it. I feel so bad for him because it really stings and he’s embarrassed etc. But you know, these things happen in life.

He isn’t in a good place. He’s really down. It’s been three days now and he has barely opened his mouth. My patience is wearing thin and I’m not sure what on Earth to say to him. I feel like I can’t pull him out of this. There is nothing I can say that’s the right thing.

It’s all just a bit of a mess. I’m sure he isn’t meaning to make me feel pushed out and sidelined and worried but he is. His mum and Dad are starting to lose patience with him too. He needs to pick himself back up. He knows this. But it never goes well when I say this to him.

OP posts:
category12 · 21/07/2018 07:23

Plan stuff for the weekend that he can join or not and it won't make much difference to you. Give him the weekend to wallow (Monday going back to work too) and see what it's like after that. He'd be getting a bit of a kick up the arse next weekend, perhaps with a "let's get your CV out" type of conversation.

Patchworkflock · 21/07/2018 07:23

Topsy2tails - that’s bloody harsh.

When you don’t get a promotion you’ve gone for it can feel like you are being told ‘you are not as good as you think you are, you’re just not good enough’ pretty fundamental stuff to feel about yourself. I think you’d be some kind of arsehole to not be upset by it. Not every blow has to be death or a crisis to really shake your self worth.

I think John Cleese nailed it on the use of the worth snowflake on twitter earlier this week:

Yes I've heard this word. I think sociopaths use it in an attempt to discredit the notion of empathy twitter.com/steven_nokes/s…

OP - you’ve had lots of great advice on head, hope your DH comes to terms with it soon.

W1neNot · 21/07/2018 07:23

Yes it's ridiculous. Nobody is saying he shouldn't be treated kindly and sympathetically but all the women on this thread who'd be prepared to tip toe round him whilst he sulks, doesn't speak and leaves his wife with the kids all weekend need to take a good long look at themselves.

Talk about man pleasing

Patchworkflock · 21/07/2018 07:24

On HERE not on head!

W1neNot · 21/07/2018 07:25

Patch - if you hadn't received a long fought for promotion, would you ignore your husband, not engage with your young children and opt out of family life, silently and then go and sulk in your bed?

W1neNot · 21/07/2018 07:25

And not for a day. No. Three days so far and no end in sight.

HermioneGoesBackHome · 21/07/2018 07:26

You’ll have to accept his way of dealing with a big blow is DIFFERENT to yours.
And accept that it’s ok.
Some people just move on to something else and concentrate on that.
Some people use distraction
Some people want and need silence.
None of those options are more ‘wallowing’ in it than the other. It’s just different ways to deal with things.

Your issue here is that you are very judgemental about his way of doing things because it’s now how you would do things. Plus, byvreacting that way, he has dare actually affecting YOU (see your comment about you just want things to go back to normal....)

Beside, you are on MN doing exactly the same thing your DH is doing.
You are been upset because you expected something (your DH to pick himself up quickly) and it’s not happening.
So why can’t you just snap of it and get in with your life, accepting this is what it is (as this is what you are expecting your DH to do)?
I can promise you that your patience running thin after (only!) three days will affect him too

Chocolaterainbows · 21/07/2018 07:29

What if his wife wasn't around for the weekend, say, maybe she was working, he'd have to take care of the kid's. He wouldn't be able to wallow. Spending too much time wallowing is why many people end up with depression these days. The world doesn't stop turning, you need to push forward.

Patchworkflock · 21/07/2018 07:30

W1nenot - really??? Imagine the reverse. Bloke comes on here, my wife didn’t get the promotion she’s slogged her guts out for a few days ago, she’s been really down since. I think she should pull herself together and get back to entertaining the kids. He’d be DESTROYED.

This isn’t really a feminist issue, it’s an issue about one partner caring for another through a tough time (which it is for him, no matter whether people feel it is justified or not). A psychologist told me once (more eloquently than I’m about to), the pain people feel is individual to that person. One person might be absolutely devastated by the loss of a pet, another copes easily. You can’t judge pain according to how you’d feel about it.

HermioneGoesBackHome · 21/07/2018 07:31

W1 there would be no tiptoeing around him in my house.
But there would also be kindness and compassion to accept his way to deal with things is different than mine.

The not doing anything in the house is, as per the OP, him who has stopped HELPING. Which points to a different issue. He isn't stopping doing the basic things he needs to do (he goes to work etc etc). He has stopped the things he (and the Op!) sees as not his responsibility.
So not an issue about his reaction to the lack of promotion. But an. Issue with what is apenting and the sharing of parenting and HW (because I agree he shouldn’t just be helping. He should be fully sharing that load as an equal partner).
Different issue that has nothing to do with his reaction to the blow. (Which also should be tackled - at a later date!)

expatinspain · 21/07/2018 07:31

I agree with you OP. Worse things happen in life and people have to carry on. You can't just check out of family life because you've had a disappointment. If this was a mother doing this as opposed to a father, it would be a different story. He's allowed the luxury of this because he has a partner picking up the slack for him and looking after the kids.

As someone who spent years as a lone parent, I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy. I went through some awful things in my life during that time, but I had to carry on and be a parent because I couldn't spend even one day indulging myself in self pity as I had a child to bring up.

Patchworkflock · 21/07/2018 07:32

@HermioneGoesBackHome just said it much better Blush

RainySeptember · 21/07/2018 07:33

I think the thing about work issues is that they're there to be faced, every single day. You can't avoid the situation. You spend every evening worrying, and every day immersed in the very thing that has upset you. You start to rationalise things and then someone says something, or you see the person they chose instead of you, and you're set back again.

I do think that three days isn't very long for such a hard kick. Let him wallow and process it. When he's ready to talk you can help him make a plan. By implying that he's letting you down in some way I expect you're adding to the stress - 'im even useless at home' etc

bengalcat · 21/07/2018 07:36

Three days - give him a break all of you . As another poster says arrange to do stuff where he can join in or not . Not only would the much hyped promotion have been good for his self esteem maybe he would've had more
money too to provide for his family . As others have said if a man posted on here for a reverse he would've been slaughtered . Good luck and chill .

Patchworkflock · 21/07/2018 07:36

Expat - completely different case. You were a lone parent. OP’s husband isn’t. I’m lucky, my DH has picked up some of the slack (cooking supper for me and dc some days etc) while I’ve been depressed. If he hadn’t been here I would have just got on and done it but he was caring for us all by helping out Hmm

ivykaty44 · 21/07/2018 07:36

Send him of to exercise as another poster says the endorphins will help.

Not sure after only 3 days why his parents are losing patience with him, you all could give him some time to lick his wounds and move on

Let him talk but don’t try and fix it for him

OliviaStabler · 21/07/2018 07:37

He has been publically humiliated within the company. That would be a huge deal to many people because the red carpet was put out for him just to be yanked away. He's probably feeling humiliated, betrayed and deeply embarrassed.

You need to give him space to work through this and stop being so harsh on him. Different people deal with things in different ways.

HermioneGoesBackHome · 21/07/2018 07:42

I’m amazed that you actually haven’t asked him how you could best support him tbh. Instead of just either expecting to behave in x way or telling him what do (eg do some exercise).

expatinspain · 21/07/2018 07:42

patchwork As was your situation different. OP's husband hasn't been diagnosed with depression, as far as we know he's just been in a shit mood for a few days.

NicoAndTheNiners · 21/07/2018 07:45

He probably isn’t just being despondent. He’s probably thinking very hard about future career options while he’s moping in front of the tv. Whether he wants to stay or leave, where else he could go.

Original poster
ConcealDontFeel · 21/07/2018 07:49

Ok to clarify a few points:

He has been going to work. Unhappily, but he’s been there. Going in the day after it happened was very difficult for him and I told him I was proud of him for going.

He is usually very hands on with the kids, good in the house etc. He doesn’t have form for this although he can definitely be a bit moody/sulky at times.

It has been a big blow to his confidence absolutely. And I’m worried about how he’s going to come back from this. I have asked him what he needs me to, how I can help him, more than once. He just shrugs and says there isn’t anything I can do.

I dunno. I just think he needs to keep it in perspective. Yeah it’s awful and it hurts but no one died and he has a lot of good things in his life.

OP posts:
Bluntness100 · 21/07/2018 07:50

I'm also not sure this has been three days if he's been in at work every day, much of the feeling of humiliation of this stuff comes after, when everyone finds out.

I'm also not sure how much he was promised it and management told the team, or if that was his interpretation, he was simply encouraged to go for it like others, but he told everyone it was his, and now has to do the climb down.

I'd give it the weekend, let him lick his wounds. He's clearly feeling humiliated, and that would likely have been made worse if he was the one playing billy big bollocks at work saying it was his to everyone.

TigerDroveAgain · 21/07/2018 07:52

Gosh some of you are harsh!

It’s nothing to do with man pleasing: isn’t it to do with basic empathy?

Work and how we’re perceived and valued at work can be a massive thing in many of our lives. A setback like this can trigger all sorts of emotions which can be difficult to process.

In my work I advise lots of people (usually men tbh) who are going through loss of their work, demotion, restructuring etc. This is what happens:

  • utter disbelief and the expectation that things will go back to how they were
  • followed by confusion: I just don’t understand why they’re treating me like this. Possibly trying to rationalise and find reasons either self blaming or extraneous
  • fury and desire for revenge plus often unrealistic expectations of how the situation can sorted : they owe me.
  • steely resolve, usually a determination to get the best out of the situation, financially but also in terms of reputation and career progression

There’s no rules about how quickly one might move through these stages. It might be all in a day, or weeks.

The OP’s DH is at the beginning of all of this. I would give him some space to think and reflect and not try to fix things. He may need to make some serious decisions about his job and maybe should consider whether he needs space there too (eg if he’s being expected to sign up to a new job description or whatever). Hopefully he’ll move to the furious stage quite quickly ( being furious with his work not OP of course): that’s when I think people move out of the ‘pity party’ ( unpleasant expression) and into the “right, what am I going to do next” mode.

I wouldn’t worry about one weekend with the kids being a bit rubbish. That’s life and if he had the flu, for example, no one would berate him. Think of this as emotional flu.

Original poster
ConcealDontFeel · 21/07/2018 07:53

Oh no bluntness that’s not him at all. He’s pretty shy and quiet generally he isn’t a big character and he isn’t boastful.

OP posts:
RedDwarves · 21/07/2018 07:54

I dunno. I just think he needs to keep it in perspective. Yeah it’s awful and it hurts but no one died and he has a lot of good things in his life.

But that's easy for you to say, isn't it? It wasn't you who experienced this setback. It was him. What you think is frankly irrelevant.